Alone in Malaysia: Hiking the Taman Negarah Rainforest (2 of 2)

I walked briskly to Kumban Hide, rumoured to be the best of the 10 or so hides for seeing animals; the hides nearest to the headquarters tend to be booked by Malaysian students looking for a place to party late into the night. It was about three hours’ walk to reach the hide, although it is possible to catch a boat to get there much more quickly.

The path leads through dense rainforest, surrounded by wonderful insect and animal sounds, although the only animals I saw were a large-ish snake, and a big monitor lizard on which I nearly stepped. It ran off with a comical reptilian gait, its feet slapping noisily on the ground as it vanished into the forest.

The hide was fully booked, and all seven of us – a mixed ethnic bag of Belgians, Germans, Britons and Canadians – gathered around the observation window to peer out by the light of our woefully inadequate flashlights. The park HQ rents out powerful flashlights that are well worth it, as they make the difference between seeing animals and squinting at vague patches of light and shadow.

The hides, small cabins perched 10 metres up on top of wooden pilings that overlook salt licks, have bedding and pillows that seem to date from the colonial era; the comment books in both hides I visited were full of complaints about the resident rats which infest the hides’ garbage cans. Certainly a bit more cleaning and maintenance of the hides, particularly the indescribably filthy toilets, would be a welcome development.

As darkness fell and we ate our peanut butter sandwiches, fruit and cheese, the noise level outside rose to a deafening chorus of chirps and clicks and buzzing, but we could see little other than a few bats circling and feeding in the trees.

Eventually, after an hour of listening to mysterious, unseen jungle creatures, something moved into view and began to root around in the swampy ground by the salt lick. We trained the combined beams of three pocket flashlights on it and could barely make out a big half-white, half-black animal with some sort of long snout on his head. It was a tapir, a large anteater-like creature common in Southeast Asian rainforests but rarely seen, except at night. The tapir spent several hours drinking and slurping away, tantalisingly hard to make out clearly. Eventually we all turned in, after several hours of intent listening and squinting.

I woke up much later, around two o’clock, and heard something lapping water. It wasn’t the tapir; all I could make out by the feeble torchlight was a small cat-like shape that soon left. It may have been a civet or a jungle cat. I cursed myself once again for not renting a proper light. Later still I was awakened by the sound of the tapir returning for more rooting around, before I fell asleep for the rest of the night.

Although we didn’t see any of the tigers, leopards, sun bears or elephants known to inhabit the park, it was still an unforgettable experience to have spent the night surrounded by such a symphony of eerie sounds. Judging by the comment book in the hide, our experience was pretty typical: the most common sightings were tapirs (outside) and rats (inside, eating garbage and stealing cookies).

I spent the day walking back through the forest, but by a different route. Again monitor lizards and snakes were the most common animal sightings, with a small deer and several squirrels thrown in for good measure. I spent another night in a second hide, but it rained torrentially all night and there were no animals to be seen.

As I headed downriver the next day, I was sorry not to have had more days to spend in the park, perhaps to take a long boat trip up one of the tributary rivers, or go on a longer walk further afield. However, I left satisfied with finally having spent time alone, soaking up the sights, sounds and smells of the tropical rainforest. For anyone with an interest in nature, Taman Negarah is one of the most memorable places in all of Southeast Asia.

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